Hebar 1918

Vladimir Gadzhev arrived at Hebar for a single season, 2019/20, already carrying 22 caps for Bulgaria. He later returned as the club's president.

The club had been wound up in 2012. Pazardzhik had already lived through a version of that loss once before: in 2001 the owners stripped the assets out to Petrich and rebuilt them there as Belasitsa. A merger with Chiko followed in 2017.

Between that founding and the current name sat renamings that tracked Bulgaria's politics more than its football: Cherveno Zname in the years after the war, Georgi Benkovski more than once, a spell simply as Maritsa, for the river running through the town. Hebar, settled on in 1979, is the old Thracian name for that same river.

The shirts are green now, with white shorts, though the club wore red and white with black socks in its first year.

Ten students and a gymnasium in Pazardzhik, in 1918 — that is where the shirt's number still points.